Podcasting is no longer a niche medium. By 2018 estimates, 17% of Americans listen to podcasts weekly. Podcast listeners have tons of buying power, as 45% of monthly podcast listeners have a household income of over $75K. Plus, podcast listeners are loyal; 80% listen to all or most of each episode, and the average listener is subscribed to 7 different shows.

As people who live in a world enveloped by sound, we know how things should sound. Therefore, it is our job as sound designers to make sure the videos we produce sound as full and as real as possible. I feel like I should say “sound” one more time. Sound.

We work in an industry often dominated by visuals, which means audio usually takes the back seat.

As a result, soundscapes will most likely have to be enhanced or perhaps even recreated. We recently produced a series of spots for the Oklahoma Highway Safety Office about the dangers motorcyclists face on the road every day. This shoot had lots of fun camera gear, but no way to capture audio. Even though the spots feature fun motion graphics with cool sound effects, we also needed to add sounds that would have occurred during recording. What would the different vehicles sound like? Are the roads in good shape, or could they use some repair? These details need to be taken into account. It’s something that may go unnoticed, but like all editing, being invisible is almost always the goal.

My parents used to love Bob Hope. Thought he was the funniest man alive. Full confession - I never thought he was funny. On the other hand, I love Steve Martin, Monty Python and Jim Gaffigan. While my kids think all of them are relatively amusing, they prefer more outrageous, sometimes shocking, humor.

By modern streaming media standards, I’m practically a living fossil. Left in the dust by defectors to Spotify, I cling to my circa-2011 media habits.